Madeleine Thien: Do Not Say We Have Nothing

“We’ll be okay,” she said finally.

I wanted, more than anything, to wake us both from this dream. Instead, helplessly, I splashed water over my tears and nodded. “I know.”

I listened to the sound of her slippers diminish as they padded away.

—

On the 16th of December, 1990, Ma came home in a taxi with a new daughter who wore no coat, only a thick scarf, a woollen sweater, blue jeans and canvas shoes. I had never met a Chinese girl before, that is, one who, like my father, came from real mainland China. A pair of grey mittens dangled from a string around her neck and swayed in nervous rhythm against her legs. The fringed ends of her blue scarf fell one in front and one behind, like a scholar. The rain was falling hard, and she walked with her head down, holding a medium-sized suitcase that appeared to be empty. She was pale and her hair had the gleam of the sea.

Casually I opened the door and widened my eyes as if I was not expecting visitors.

“Girl,” Ma said. “Take the suitcase. Hurry up.”

Ai-ming stepped inside and paused on the edge of the doormat. When I reached for the suitcase, my hand accidentally touched hers, but she didn’t draw back. Instead, her other hand reached out and lightly covered mine. She gazed right at me, with such openness and curiosity that, out of shyness, I closed my eyes.

“Ai-ming,” Ma was saying. “Let me introduce you. This is my Girl.”

I pulled away and opened my eyes again.

Ma, taking off her coat, glanced first at me and then at the room. The brown sofa with its three camel-coloured stripes had seen better days, but I had spruced it up with all the flowery pillows and stuffed animals from my bed. I had also turned on the television in order to give this room the appearance of liveliness. Ma nodded vigorously at me. “Girl, greet your aunt.”

“Really, it’s okay if you call me Ai-ming. Please. I really, mmm, prefer it.”

To placate them both, I said, “Hello.”

Just as I suspected, the suitcase was very light. With my free hand, I moved to take Ai-ming’s coat, remembering too late she didn’t have one. My arm wavered in the air like a question mark. She reached out, grasped my hand and firmly shook it.

She had a question in her eyes. Her hair, pinned back on one side, fell loosely on the other, so that she seemed forever in profile, about to turn towards me. Without letting go of my hand, she manoeuvred her shoes noiselessly off her feet, first one then the other. Pinpoints of rain glimmered on her scarf. Our lives had contracted to such a degree that I could not remember the last time a stranger had entered our home; Ai-ming’s presence made everything unfamiliar, as if the walls were crowding a few inches nearer to see her. The previous night, we had, at last, tidied Ba’s papers and notebooks, putting them into boxes and stacking the boxes under the kitchen table. Now I found the table’s surface deceitfully bare. I freed my hand, saying I would put the suitcase in her bedroom.

Ma showed her around the apartment. I retreated to the sofa and pretended to watch the Weather Channel, which predicted rain for the rest of the week, the rest of 1990, the rest of the century, and even the remainder of all time. Their two voices ran one after the other like cable cars, interrupted now and then by silence. The intensity in the apartment crept inside me, and I had the sensation that the floor was made of paper, that there were words written everywhere I couldn’t read, and one unthinking gesture could crumple this whole place down.

—

We ate together, seated around the dining table. Ma had removed a leaf, transforming the table from an egg to a circle. She interrupted her own rambling to give me a look that said, Stop staring .

Every now and then, my foot accidentally kicked one of the boxes under the table, causing Ai-ming to startle.

“Ai-ming, do you mind the cold?” Ma said cheerily, ignoring me. “I myself never experienced winter until I came to Canada.”

“Beijing has winter but I didn’t mind it. Actually, I grew up far away from there, in the South where it was humid and warm, and so when we moved to Beijing, the cold was new to me.”

“I’ve never been to the capital, but I heard the dust flies in from the western deserts.”

“It’s true.” Ai-ming nodded, smiling. “The dust would get into our clothes and hair, and even into our food.”

Sitting across from her, I could see that she really was nineteen. Her eyes looked puffy and exhausted, and reminded me, unexpectedly, of Ma’s grieving face. Sometimes, I think, you can look at a person and know they are full of words. Maybe the words are withheld due to pain or privacy, or maybe subterfuge. Maybe there are knife-edged words waiting to draw blood. I felt like both a child and a grown-up. I wanted Ma and me to be left alone but, for reasons I couldn’t explain, I wanted to be near her.

“What is the ‘ming’ of Ai-ming?” I asked in English, kicking a box for emphasis. “Is it the ‘ming’ that means to understand, or the ‘ming’ that means fate?”

They both looked at me.

“Eat your chicken,” Ma said.

The daughter studied me, a pleased expression on her face. She drew a shape in the air between us, 明. The sun and the moon combined to make understanding or brightness. It was an everyday word.

“My parents wanted the idea of aì míng,” she said. “ ‘To cherish wisdom.’ But you’re right, there’s a misgiving in it. An idea that is…mmm, not cherishing fate, not quite, but accepting it.” She picked up her bowl again and pushed the tip of her chopsticks into the softness of the rice.

Ma asked her if there was anything she needed, or if there was something she would like to do.

Ai-ming put down her bowl. “To be honest, I feel as if it’s been a long time since I had a good night’s sleep. In Toronto, I couldn’t rest. Every few weeks I had to move.”

“Move house?” Ma said.

Ai-ming was trembling. “I thought…I was afraid of the police. I was frightened they would send me back. I don’t know if my mother was able to tell you everything. I hope so. In Beijing, I didn’t do anything wrong, anything criminal, but even so…In China, my aunt and uncle helped me leave and I crossed the border into Kyrgyzstan and then…you bought my ticket here. Despite everything, you helped me…I’m grateful, I’m afraid I’ll never be able to thank you as I should. I’m sorry for everything…”

Ma looked embarrassed. “Here,” she said. “Eat something.”

But a change had come over Ai-ming. Her hands were shaking so hard, she couldn’t manage her chopsticks. “Every day I go back and think things over but I can’t understand how I arrived here. It’s as if I’m a fugitive. At home, my mother is struggling. I’m afraid to sleep…sometimes I dream that none of this really happened but then waking up becomes a nightmare. If my mother had me with her, if only my father was alive, if only he hadn’t…but the most important thing is that I make something of myself because, right now, I have nothing. I haven’t even got a passport. I’m afraid to use the one I had before, it’s not…legal. It wasn’t mine but I had no choice. I heard that if I could get across the border into the United States, there’s an amnesty for Chinese students and I might qualify. Even if I have nothing I’ll pay everything back, I swear it. I promise.”

“Zhí nǔ,” Ma said, leaning towards her. The words confused me. They meant “my brother’s daughter,” but Ma had no brothers.

“I wanted to take care of them but everything changed so quickly. Everything went wrong.”

“There’s no need to defend yourself here,” Ma said. “We’re family and these are not just words, do you understand? These are much more than words.”